Conservation groups rally over lake pollution

SALISBURY | Conservation groups and educators rallied citizens Monday to get involved in a High Rock Lake clean-up strategy being coordinated by state officials.

BY NASH DUNNThe Dispatch

SALISBURY | Conservation groups and educators rallied citizens Monday to get involved in a High Rock Lake clean-up strategy being coordinated by state officials.The North Carolina Division of Water Quality identifies High Rock Lake as impaired due to high levels of Chlorophyll-a, a chemical compound that can be attributed to elevated nutrient levels. Experts say unbalanced nutrient levels cause damage to waterways, including aquatic life. Yadkin Riverkeeper Inc. Executive Director Dean Naujoks pleaded with about 50 area citizens to get involved in an ongoing management plan that will aim to balance those nutrient levels."We do have the right to participate and figure out ways to clean up and improve our rivers," Naujoks said during a Riverkeeper-sponsored forum at Catawba College in Salisbury.The Division of Water Quality expects the stakeholder portion of the Nutrient Management Strategy to begin "sometime in 2014," according to its website. The strategic plans, which have also been developed for other watersheds across the state, typically have distinct goals, including rules and regulations, for achieving specific water quality standards.Storm water runoff, fertilizers, sewage and wastewater, among other factors, can lead to excess nutrient levels, or pollution. Naujoks and other water quality advocates have consistently blamed large corporations and municipalities for contributing to the issue.Earlier this month, Yadkin Riverkeeper Inc. joined six other conservation groups in an attempt to intervene in a state lawsuit targeting Duke Energy's alleged coal ash pollution. Donna Lisenby, the global campaign coordinator at the Waterkeeper Alliance, told the crowd Monday that leakage from ash ponds like those at the coal-fired Buck Steam Station near Spencer seeps into groundwater, releasing heavy metals into waterways."Even though Duke announced plans to retire Buck, those ash ponds still remain, and they have no announced plans to do anything with ash ponds," Lisenby said.Duke Energy spokesperson Erin Culbert said the Buck station retired last April, adding that coal ash is no longer going to ash basins and discharges from the basins to the Yadkin River are very minimal."The station is being decommissioned, a multi-year process that will result in safely demolishing the plant and effectively closing its three ash basins," Culbert said in an email. "This provides the ultimate resolution to ash basin questions."Naujoks' organization has also battled Alcoa Power Generating Inc. for years and more recently sued the City of Thomasville for its recurring wastewater spills. The city and the Riverkeeper have been negotiating terms of a consent agreement in recent months, which will likely spell out overflow reduction goals and other requirements the city would have to meet.Thomasville's aging wastewater system has been the root of more than 100 sanitary sewer overflows in recent years. In 2009, the city's largest wastewater spill sent 15.9 million gallons of wastewater into North Hamby Creek, Abbotts Creek and eventually High Rock Lake. Since then, more than 4.33 million gallons of wastewater have spilled into waterways, according to city records.In the past year, Thomasville has obtained about $5.3 million in loan and grant funding to repair pump stations and sewer lines at the center of most of the spills. Rehabilitation projects for the Northside and East Davidson pump stations recently launched, as did a North Hamby Creek Outfall replacement project."Per the spill history we have seen over the last three years, these three projects when completed should have a substantial positive effect in reducing the spills that we have had in our system," Thomasville City Manager Kelly Craver said.Dr. JoAnn Burkholder, the director of the North Carolina State University Center for Applied Aquatic Ecology, said wastewater and other factors have caused High Rock Lake to be a "polluted mess" since the 1970s. Also calling on citizens to get involved, Burkholder said the Nutrient Management Strategy must require control of nitrogen and phosphorus levels and include meaningful time constraints for control and repair."It is you, folks, more than anyone else, who can turn these issues around," Burkholder said. "If it's not us with our feet on the ground, these issues are never going to change."To find more information about the Nutrient Management Strategy, go to portal.ncdenr.org/web/wq/high-rock-lake. Nash Dunn can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 227, or at nash.dunn@the-dispatch.com. Follow Nash on Twitter: @LexDispatchNash

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